A parliament of owls

Scrutator is still in shock after reading one struggling weekly that masquerades as the biggest paper in the country.

The paper had a damn good story about the government withdrawing a toxic anti-retroviral drug from the market but, as usual, they botched it by trying to be too stylish for nothing.

They wrote it like a feature when it should have been a real breaking story.

But what really flabbergasted Scrutator was that the paper had the nerve to withhold the name of the toxic drug from their story.

“Name withheld,” the paper said as if that was something to be proud about.

The paper admitted that some Aids patients had suffered side-effects after taking the drug yet the reporter could not bring herself to mention the name of the drug.

What was so unethical about mentioning that drug? Were they trying to protect the inept company or the public?

This is recklessness of the highest order.

It’s treasonous, to say the least.

Because the paper engaged in such a cowardly tactic some innocent people will continue to take the drug under the false belief that it’s safe.

It’s like writing a story that some infant formula milk has been withdrawn from the market and then you don’t mention the brand.

Or writing a story that a certain food product has been discovered to be toxic but then withhold the name. The role of a newspaper is to inform the public. Scrutator is seething with anger.

This recklessness is being perpetrated by a newspaper that operates in a country where 23.2 percent of the population is HIV positive.

Hundreds are dying every day yet a national paper finds it appropriate to withhold such life-saving information from the people.

The mini-skirts were barely long enough to cover the barest essentials.

But they were also short enough to keep one’s interest alive and buzzing. Honestly this was a bizarre contest.

It was meant to select the most daring woman who would put on the shortest mini-skirt at that shrine of decadence in Roma.

The Roman goddess of love must have smiled and enjoyed every bit of the competition. They came in all shapes and sizes — from the bulky bottoms to the skinny ones.

Scrutator now understands why the students cannot string together meaningful sentences and why they cannot spell. The “competition” was simply an exhibition of moral debauchery.

She is told NUL is no longer famous for ground-breaking academic research.

Instead it now has a special faculty specialising in moral decadence and every vice that you can think of.

The results of a lack of a moral campus are out on parade around every October.

Come next month, half of all first-year female students will be pushing big tummies.

Just watch the next few weeks.

Of course, universities are well known for engendering the free spirit.

It is often the norm at varsities that are worth their salt that students are encouraged to push the boundaries of what is generally perceived as acceptable in the relentless pursuit of knowledge and academic freedom.

But when the whole university student community becomes an openly fornicating society then I have problems with those students.

Scrutator is hostile to those who seek to ‘commodify’ women’s bodies for the sexual gratification of men.

Displaying our bulky bottoms is not part of the fight for our emancipation.

One smart MP told Scrutator that she was getting irritated by sitting idly in parliament.

She said in the first five days after parliament re-opened from that unnecessary winter break the MPs have done nothing but pray because the authorities say “there is no business for the day”.

Since when has our parliament become a church?

And since when have our MPs become “praying mantises”?

This “no-business-for-the-day” announcement is being made in a parliament that has many important Bills to pass.

This is the same House with MPs who think they are so special that they should not work during winter.

They have just spent three months in pyjamas but they still insist on whiling up time in parliament.

Soon they will be going for the two-week Independence break.

When they come back they will spend another few weeks nursing the hangover of the gallons of free liquor they would have imbibed during that break.

A few weeks later they will start ducking parliament sessions to go Christmas shopping in South Africa.

When they come back in February they will be too busy looking forward to the salary increment in the budget to do any work.

And to think we pay these people M15 000 a month plus other benefits.

Dog’s Dinner would have said: “1 000 days, still no meaningful production in parliament”.

Quiz time: If a group of owls is called a parliament then what do you call a parliament that is full of indolent parliamentarians?

To win a prize send your answers to the following address:

“The New Parliament Building.

Private Bag 120

Wasted seats.

M15 000 FOR NOTHING Street, Allowance Town”

Prizes include a meeting with Honourable Rantelali Shea, a seat in parliament’s public gallery or a foreign trip with the Speaker or a rare chance to see Tom Thabane attending parliament (he rarely attends those sessions these days).

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